Sunday, August 26, 2012

Why Fiscal Conservatives Lose Political Wars

Strict fiscal conservatives react to social conservatives
pretty much in the way devils react to holy water. When an ardent political
fiscal conservative identifies himself as such, his intent is to indicate whom
he means to oblige once in office. But fiscal conservatism without some measure
of social conservatism is what William James, the father of American
pragmatism, called a dead option, because it leaves out of account essential
social configurations. At bottom, all politics is social.

Aristotle begins his general discussion of politics with a
consideration of the family as the principal political unit of the state, but
then the Aristotelian state is much larger, deeper and wider than that of the
fiscal conservative who flees the field when the political chatter turns to a
discussion of social considerations. This abject pants-on-fire flight leaves
progressives and liberals in charge of the family, the church, the school, the
constitution – America’s primary socio-political document -- and all other social
and political mediating institutions.

The problem with such timidity is that it surrenders the
political field to modern disintegrative forces. Just as Benjamin Franklin
warned the children of the American Revolution that they must KEEP the Republic
bequeathed to them by the founders, so the society in which fiscal
conservatives live and move must be kept in relative good order, presumably by social
as well as fiscal conservatives. It simply will not do for conservatives to
pretend that the fiscal state has nothing to do with the moral or social order.

And, in fact, liberals and progressives suppose no such
thing – which is why they have won most of the battles fought on
social grounds here in Connecticut.

The forces of social disintegration, so evident in cities
run for years by the state’s dominant Democratic Party, provide unimpeachable
testimony to the effects of the flight of Republicans from social issues. To
take but one instance, the father, as a force for social good in city life, has
pretty much disappeared from the urbanscape. His passing will not be mourned by
fiscal conservatives who, like Pilate, are only too happy to wash their hands of inconvenient
social issues.

A friend who counts himself both a fiscal and social
conservative meets the usual cowardly retreat from moral and ethical issues by
asking fiscal conservatives in full flight from their social responsibilities
to name ONE piece of legislation passed in the last two hundred years that has
NO social consequences. This question produces a stunned silence – for good
reasons.

Every piece of current legislation, all previous statutory
laws, every judgment by a court, every political decision made by a chief
executive, necessarily affects the social sphere; and if laws and regulations
and taxes and the rate of spending – generally considered to fall on the fiscal
side of the fence – were to have no social repercussions at all, they would be
entirely worthless. What exactly is the point in passing a piece of fiscal
legislation that leaves the social status
quo untouched?

The division usually cited between fiscal and social
conservatism is the most conspicuous red herring of the modern age, often
thoughtless and prone to baneful influences exerted by political demagogues.

Some Connecticut delegates to the national Republican
convention recently told a reporter
that “abortion is one issue that
divides them from the national party,” which is true enough. A Republican
abortion rights supporter gave it as her opinion that "social issues have
no role in political platforms," and Republican Party Chairman Gerry
Labriola said the economy, not abortion, should be the focus of the convention,
because abortion “is not a relevant issue of our time."

What Connecticut Republicans who claim they are fiscal and not social conservatives really mean by so identifying themselves is this: Democrats, especially here in the Northeast, have routed Republicans on some social battlegrounds – abortion, gay marriage, fragging the Catholic Church, spanking millionaires, and so on, because these battles have been ceded to them without a struggle; it is pointless to fight on ground long surrendered and captured by the opposition. Bearing in mind the baleful effects of Obamanomics on Connecticut and the nation, the general election, tremulous “fiscal” conservatives suppose, can be won on economic issues alone.Therefore, say the fiscal conservatives, in general elections Republicans should scrub their campaigns of social issues and yeild to Democrats whenever possible. They are wrong.

Mr. Labriola certainly didn’t mean to say that abortion “is
not a relevant issue of our time." The issue of abortion in our day is at
least as relevant as the issue of slavery in the time of Lincoln. It most
certainly has been a relevant issue for opposition Democrats. But then,
Connecticut Democrats have had an easy time of it because hard questions are
never put to them by Republicans in full retreat from the issue.

One wonders why Mr. Labriola would be unwilling to defend
the position on abortion staked out by Hillary Clinton in her senate run
against Rick Lazio in New York only a few years ago. Mr. Lazio charged that
Mrs. Clinton – the wife of the guy who said abortion should be “safe, legal and
RARE” – supported partial birth abortion which, he noted, Daniel Patrick
Moynihan had called “infanticide.” No, said Mrs. Clinton, she DID support a ban
on partial birth abortion, provided the ban did not endanger, in a specific
instance, the life and health of the patient as determined by the doctor.

Now, there were social conservatives at the time who thought
that Mrs. Clinton’s proviso – no partial birth abortion except when the
“health” (psychological well-being?) of the patient is in question – was commodious
enough to admit abortion in most cases; but no one would have argued that the
discussion was irrelevant.

And no conscientious Republican today is arguing that an
impinging fiscal issue – Is it proper for the state to violate the religious
precepts of Christian organizations by leveling upon them a “tax” should they
refuse to provide abortifacients to their employees? – is not also a religious,
ethical, constitutional and social issue.

All fiscal political issues are social issues because they
affect society; and all political social issues are fiscal issues when they
draw upon the public purse. Republicans in Connecticut will begin to win
politically when they stop retreating and start fighting. You cannot win any
political war unless you are willing to capture and hold social territory.